News & Articles on Large Wind Turbines

Large wind turbines are those used to generate commercial quantities of electricity. This category includes single turbines used in distributed applications as well as arrays of multiple wind turbines used in a wind power plant.

On 26 April 2019 the alumni association of the Natural Resources and Environmental Management Department at my alma mater, Ball State University, presented me with its Award of Distinction, the...[more]

Massive pods of 700-foot floating wind turbines off the coast of California are edging closer to becoming a reality, now that the state has firm applications from several companies hoping to realize...

Thank you, Mr. President, for the timely attention. My recent book about windmills, or what we call wind turbines, has been languishing in a New York warehouse not far from Trump Tower--until now,...[more]

Category: News on Large Wind, Wind Noise, Health, & Safety, Book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us

Up in the Air is a short film about the wind turbine project in Prince Edward County. For nearly two decades, a group of County residents have been supporting wind energy initiatives. The White Pines...

Category: News on Large Wind, News on Community Power, Wind Energy & the Environment

The Associated Press circulated a news item on 14 January 2019 about a field hand killed near Visalia when the blade of a "wind machine" fell off. See California orchard worker dies after 600-pound...[more]

What struck my eye is the quote, "Indiana is a better location for the use of windpower than many eastern states, since most wind speeds are higher, the terrain flatter, and most of the trees cut...[more]

Category: News on Large Wind Turbines, Book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us

The growing excitement for offshore wind development on the Great Lakes is great to see. William Friedman, of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, has announced that they have identified the...[more]

Cleveland has been a city of innovation, right from the very beginning. In 1796 Moses Cleaveland, in his westward journey from Connecticut, discovered the area around the mouth of the Cuyahoga River,...[more]

Wind power prices have plummeted in recent years since Germany switched to auctions. Now, a study has found what readers of this blog already knew: the prices only look low because they are reported...

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Energy funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to lead a 4-year project collecting data from a broad-based and representative sample of individuals...

The Unite union has called on the UK government and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to toughen the laws governing the construction and maintenance of wind farms, following the death of a worker at...

But after 16 years — and $100 million of his own money — that dream is, well, gone with the wind. Mr. Gordon has pulled the plug, stymied by endless litigation and a series of financial and political...

The Interior Department has quietly rolled back an Obama-era policy aimed at protecting migratory birds, stating in a solicitor’s opinion that it will no longer prosecute oil and gas, wind, and solar...

A big reason Dow chose wind energy in gas-rich Texas, is that wind power has a completely predictable fuel cost (zero), which budget planners like. They don't have to guess what their costs will be a...

Renewable energy and electric vehicle fan Bob Tregilus was out and about in rural Nevada when he came across an odd wind turbine powering a well pump in the Reese River Valley. So he sent along his...[more]

Contrary to the ideas promulgated by some opponents of wind generation, most of the substantial investment in wind farms in South Australia is not being paid for by taxpayers or electricity consumers...

Given that this is offshore wind, it stands to reason that lenders and investors will work from what they know (offshore wind using fixed-bottom foundations), and try to understand how different FOW...

$13 billion was invested in new wind power plants in 2016. In 2016, wind energy contributed 5.6% of the nation’s electricity supply, more than 10% of total electricity generation in fourteen states,...

Yes, I’ve written about this subject once before, Everything You Need to Know about Wind Energy Was Written in 1957!, but I am moving the date back thirty years in the light of more research. The...[more]

Category: Book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, History of Wind Power, Small Wind folder, News on Wind Energy, News on Large Wind

While thumbing through German renewables magazine, Sonne Wind&Wärme, a table jumped out at me. The table confirmed that the Silent Wind Revolution that French renewables expert Bernard Chabot first...[more]

With a month to go this fiscal year, Japan's installation of new wind power capacity in 2016-17 is set to come in almost double that of the previous 12 months, propelled by higher tariffs guaranteed...

"It is prohibited for any private actor, any renewable energy company to come into Newfoundland to build a renewable energy source or to sell or transmit it on the grid. It's essentially against the...

What summary data tells us is that California wind farms generated 13.7 TWh from 6,200 MW of installed capacity in 2014. This results in a fleet-wide yield of 2,200 kWh/kW/yr. This is an important...[more]

No. That title isn’t click bate. Long ago, in a land far away, I had to give a speech on the future of wind energy. That’s not noteworthy; I do it all the time. What was noteworthy, though, was that...[more]

In early 2016 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) installed a large wind turbine at their headquarters in central England. The 100-meter (330-foot) tall turbine was installed at the...[more]

The good news is that with a smaller font size and tighter leading (the space between lines) than in my previous books, Holm has been able to substantially reduce the number of printed pages from...[more]

Category: Book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, book Reviews, News on Large Wind, Small Wind folder

Today marks the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945 by the 6th armored division of the US Third Army. Buchenwald is significant for several reasons. 56,000 people died in the...[more]

Category: History of Wind Power, Book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, News on Large Wind

Big step in the long road to publishing my new book: Wind Energy for the Rest of Us. Today I assigned the ISBN numbers to the digital and print version. Each version of the book has its own distinct...[more]

Category: Book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, book Reviews, News on Large Wind, Small Wind folder

In the last few years of eligibility, feed-in tariffs for offshore wind power dropped to 3.9 cents. Today, guest author Philipp Schmagold explains that the rising cost of O&M at the end of the second...

The Kern-Kaweah Chapter of the Sierra Club will lead a hike among the wind turbines on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) at 9:00 am on Saturday May 21, 2016 near Tehachapi, California.
The Sierra Club's...[more]

Wind Energy for the Rest of Us by Paul Gipe straddles two—or more—worlds. The book is about wind energy. It’s not just about small wind turbines. It’s not just about large wind turbines. It’s about...[more]

Category: Book Wind Energy for the Rest of Us, book Reviews, News on Large Wind, Small Wind folder

Den Wind der Welt einfangen is part of series of retrospectives being issued by pioneers in the field of wind energy as they near retirement. Written by freelance journalist Dierk Jensen, Catching...[more]

Category: Reviews Coffee Table Books, News on Large Wind, Book Reviews of Books auf Deutsch, Reviews of Wind Books auf Deutsch, History of Wind Power

Wind Power for the World tells an exciting tell of hope and promise—how a small band of activists, dreamers, and entrepreneurs built one of the world’s fastest growing and dynamic industries. It’s a...[more]

I am hosting the following spreadsheet file prepared by the Idaho National Laboratory that is no longer available or has been compromised. The xls file contains tabular power curve data for a number...[more]

This year, it will have closer to a third renewable power, close the new target for 2020, which now stands at 35 percent. Moreover, the level of 20 percent – once thought hard to reach by 2020 – has...

The Sierra Club was one of a number of groups that lobbied for the project, including the National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation and labor unions, when it was first proposed in 2009....

Yes, there’s a wind turbine in San Francisco Bay. It’s probably one of only two commercial wind turbines in all of Marin County.
Yes, it’s in a state park too.
It’s been there for more than three...[more]

Boston and the communities around Boston Harbor have more commercial wind turbines than the entire San Francisco Bay, including one 1.5 MW wind turbine within Boston's urban core. Yes, it's a real...[more]

Tehachapi’s Windmill-Wildflower Hike is one of the longest-running such events anywhere in the world. Nearly a thousand people, from children to octogenarians, have taken the six-mile walk across...[more]

The Court dismissed all the appeals. In effect, the Court has confirmed the constitutional validity of the Ontario overnment’s
system for approving and regulating wind turbines. The Court’s decision...

The first cool thing that jumped out to me while using the app was: “Wow, there are a lot of wind farms around here!” I knew Poland wasn’t bad with regards to wind power, and that Germany had a good...

The pocket bilingual dictionary is published by OffTEC, a leading provider of training courses for onshore and offshore wind industries. The dictionary is designed for trainee wind turbine service...[more]

In the short to medium term the fossil fuel interests and their supporters – both witting and unwitting — are fighting the battle of their corporate lives to preserve the privileged position they’ve...

The former East German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern became the first German state to generate more electricity with renewable energy than its own domestic consumption. In 2013 the state on the...[more]

A German startup launches a crowdfunding campaign tomorrow for its “wind kites,” and it is doing so by bad-mouthing the wonderful stuff we have. These folks resort to crowdfunding because people who...

Windpower Ownership in Sweden: Business models and motives, the new book by Tore Wizelius helps English-speakers understand how Swedes have taken a sizable ownership of wind energy in spite of their...[more]

Category: book Reviews, News on Large Wind, News on Community Power, Community Power and Wind Energy & the Environment en Francais

Daniel Wetzel at WELT reports on a new nationwide anti-wind organization recently founded in Germany. The name of the new lobby group is “Vernunftkraft” (reason power). I am not linking to them, but...

Tehachapi’s Windmill-Wildflower Hike is one of the longest-running annual walks among wind turbines worldwide. More than 800 people, from children to octogenarians, have taken the six-mile walk...[more]

Category: News on Large Wind, Community Power and Wind Energy & the Environment en Francais, Debunking Myths about Wind Energy

In a new study, researchers from Imperial College Business School carried out a comprehensive nationwide analysis of the UK fleet of wind turbines, using local wind speed data from NASA. They showed...

In solidarity with BWE, I’ve endorsed their campaign by taking the small step of including one of their themes in the banner of my web site. I’ve posted one banner in the original German and one...[more]

The UBA study found 13.8% of land area suitable for wind energy; 49,000 km2, and that with contemporary wind turbines there is the astonishing 1,200,000 MW capable of generating 2,900 TWh/yr. This is...[more]

Of the wind turbines installed in 2012, only 28% were installed on green field sites in Niedersachsen and only 20% in Schleswig-Holstein. The rest were installed as replacements for existing turbines...[more]

Archivists at the York County Heritage Trust have uncovered a treasure trove of records from the 1.25 MW Smith-Putnam turbine of the early 1940s. The museum archives records of the S. Morgan Smith...[more]

It’s been a long time since I’ve had anything to say about the American Wind Energy Association.
To my surprise AWEA published a few photos from my collection in their recent calendar. One is of a...[more]

I’d already marked up my version of Matthias Willenbacher’s book My Indecent Offer to the Chancellor in the faint hope of some day posting a review from the German—it’s difficult and time consuming...[more]

A new study reveals that more than three quarters of those surveyed in Switzerland support wind power, and roughly the same number say there is "no" or "only a minor" affect on people in surrounding...

The old canard of 14,000 abandoned wind turbines in California came up again recently in Australia of all places. A rabid anti-wind blogger—seems the Aussies have a good crop of them downunder—posted...[more]

The growth of wind power, if undertaken with reasonable care, should pose no risk to any particular bird species in Canada, according to a new peer-reviewed study. The study also suggests that highly...

We estimated impacts on birds from the development and operation of wind turbines in Canada considering both mortality due to collisions and loss of nesting habitat. We estimated collision mortality...

Ten Mile Lagoon wind farm on the south coast of West Australia was commissioned 20-years ago. The pioneering wind-diesel system at the remote community of Esperance cost AUS$5.8 million in 1993 to...[more]

Because of a flood of misinformation about what it costs to dismantle wind turbines, I’ve chosen to post a section from my 1995 book on the topic. Note that this was written nearly two decades ago.[more]

I am posting this data for its historical context and because the question of specific capacity has come to the fore as wind turbine manufacturers are now offering IEC Class IIIA turbines with very...[more]

In my 1995 book, Wind Energy Comes of Age, I discuss various measures of wind turbine productivity, including the misleading expression capacity factor. This discussion follows an explanation of how...[more]

“It is erroneous to interpret the reasons as establishing a precedent for the degree of proof required to establish a decrease in property values in these circumstances,” wrote Justice Healey in her...

No other province in Canada has a longer history with wind energy than Alberta, which has 20 years of experience with utility-scale wind farms. Yet, unlike some parts of the country, we don’t tend to...

Wind energy is growing in Indiana. Now there are some wind turbines in Upland on the Taylor University campus and there are two commercial-scale turbines Union City as well. Wind farms have also...[more]

Category: News on Large Wind Turbines, News on Large Wind, News on Wind Energy

The government aims to triple the nation's supply capacity of electricity generated through wind power to 7.5 million kilowatts by developing transmission grids in Hokkaido and the Tohoku region, it...

Our firm needs 100 volunteers to attend and participate in a rally in front of the British Consulate/Embassy in Midtown Manhattan on the East Side on Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 12 noon. The event...

This has left wind energy open to attack by those, for whatever reason, who don’t think wind turbines have a place in our electricity mix. Associated with those attacks is much misunderstanding about...

Opens Up New Possibility for Community Ownership
Danish researchers have uncovered surprising results in a study of offshore wind energy. Contrary to expectations, research at the University of...[more]

Nearly Half of the Regions GDP is from Tourism
Yet Nearly Two-Thirds of Schleswig-Holstein's Wind Capacity is also in the Region
December 26, 2012
By Paul Gipe
Attendees at the 2012 Husum wind...[more]

Nearly 2% of Land Area Set Aside for Wind Energy
Not 100%, Not 200%, But 300% Renewable Energy by 2020 Says Government
The German state of Schleswig-Holstein recently approved doubling the land...[more]

Henning Holst is one of Germany's pioneering community wind developers. Located in the center of the wind energy universe in Husum (the gray city by the sea) in northwestern Germany, he was there at...[more]

At the World Wind Energy Association conference in Bonn this past July there was a session on operations and maintenance and service providers. Carlo Reeker summarized the findings of annual survey...[more]

While traveling in Denmark this year I picked up a local newspaper (Dagbladet 13 September 2012, p 32) that had an article on the huge Anholt offshore project in the northern Kattegat--the straits...[more]

WNET: We want to ask you some questions about alternative energy. Gipe. Whoa. Stop right there. "Alternative energy?" Wind, solar, and biomass haven't been called "alternative energy" for three...[more]

Japanese mobile phone group and prime proponent of Feed-in Tariffs, Softbank, is planning to build wind farms with up to 1GW of capacity on Hokkaido island, as the company expands its investments in...

Note that the article below is out of date. See the most current database for the number of fatal accidents in the wind industry. Below is a summary table from the spreadsheet. Note that there are...[more]

Yes, anti-wind hysteria has made me sick. I got queasy in my stomach when I think of the 150,000 wind turbines operating worldwide and still no epidemic of death and disease had yet broken out...[more]

Because of the rapidly growing demand for windsmiths (wind energy technicians) in North America, several community colleges have begun offering associate degree programs.
Several of these programs,...[more]

Category: News on Small Wind, Wind Training Courses, News on Large Wind

Windflow Technology Newsletter Nº 31, June 2011
Some people use capacity factor as the basis for comparing wind farms and turbines.
Capacity factor is the average kilowatts produced over a period,...[more]

Long-time renewable energy advocate Paul Gipe was selected by the Canadian Wind Energy Association for its Individual Leadership Award at its 2009 conference in Toronto September 22.
The Canadian...[more]

Category: News on Wind Energy, News on Feed in Tariffs, News on Large Wind

There are a several sources of information for landowners on the typical terms and conditions for leasing land for wind energy development. The newest is by the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association...[more]

Portion of a presentation made January 10, 2008 to Al Gore's Solutions Summit
To significantly address the United State's contribution to climate change and to prepare for the diminishing supply of...[more]

Cleveland's Great Lakes Science Center installed a 225 kW Vestas V27 wind turbine in 2006 on the city's harbor front between the Cleveland Brown's football stadium and the science museum. The V27 is...[more]

The following worksheets were developed for the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association and the Toronto Renewable Energy Cooperative in 2007 for the report Renewables without Limits: Moving Toward...[more]

Generator Size and Swept Area
Newcomers to wind energy and even some old-timers who should know better often equate the size of a wind turbine to it's generator rating. A Vestas V80 for example...[more]

A much anticipated update on wind turbines and birds in California's Altamont Pass concludes that the problem is more severe than once believed. The report by biologists Carl Thelander and Sean...[more]

Today Paul Gipe submitted his candidates biography to the American Wind Energy Association for re-election to AWEA's board of directors. In his biography Gipe calls for a dramatic change in AWEA's...[more]

The publisher of Windpower Monthly and WindStats Newsletter, Forlaget Vistoft, has published 1997 Glossary of Wind Energy Terms. The 100 page paperback by Paul Gipe and Bill Canter is the most...[more]

With the completion of this wind plant, events have come full circle. The flow of visitors seeking information about wind energy has reversed. The intellectual, technical, and may I say "moral"...[more]

Kenetech Windpower (U.S. Windpower), one of the world's largest wind companies, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 1996.
Below is a list of references to U.S. Windpower (Kenetech Windpower) in...[more]

These comments were posted to awea-windnet and subsequently noise from the AWT 26 was abated. Eventually the turbines were removed when the manufacturer ceased operation.
The installation of a...[more]

The book, Land of the Living, is based on Borish's study of the Danish folkehøjskol system in the early 1980s. His book is an articulate examination of Danish culture. His theme is that Denmark could...[more]

Category: book Reviews, History of Wind Power, News on Large Wind, News on Wind Energy